


DreamTime

by kenthel



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Computer Pseudoscience, Friendship, Kagehina Exchange 2015, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-23
Updated: 2015-12-23
Packaged: 2018-05-08 14:54:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 14,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5501885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kenthel/pseuds/kenthel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hinata Shouyou attends high school in an alternate future where sleep is not naturally possible.  When he discovers programming prodigy Kageyama Tobio's independent study project, he develops a curiosity for the boy he had only heard rumors about.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sleeping Through Alarms

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to number 106.
> 
> I truly hope you enjoy this. Happy Holidays. Have a wonderful New Year.

Protocol had no flaws.

Schedules assigned to the people were adhered to. Lateness was not an option. Progress was the only choice. This was why the peoples of Japan had collectively decided to forgo frivolous sleep. Whimsy and wonder were not productive to science. As of year 20XX, all citizens voluntarily had a chip imbedded in the back of their left hand.

The EfficiencyChip. This chip monitored the host’s location and basic functions. It read all medical records and contained all traces of identification. And this chip did not let the citizen naturally enter sleep unless it was of biological necessity. Instead, controlled stasis programs provided by the government allowed for “rest.” During this time, students reviewed what they learned. Working people continued their research. Infants and toddlers mentally practiced the fundamental steps toward becoming autonomous.

The Prolific Age began.

 

PART 1

Hinata had never dreamed.

He laid his tired head onto a flat pillow with censors stuck to his forehead, closed his eyes, and connected to his stasis classes server. Once connected, he appeared in an isolated classroom with no other students, no other desks, and no instructor. He sat encased in a thick, yellow bubble. He tested the strength of the spherical cage with his palm and it snapped back into place like rubber. Educational videos streamed seamlessly on the off yellow curve and a gentle, slow voice explained directly into his thoughts what he saw. The voice he heard belonged to his family’s home building AI, Kiyoko. The voice was an automated, soothing, polite feminine voice.

“Kiyoko,” Hinata projected into his thoughts, momentarily overlapping Kiyoko’s incessant lecturing, “can we go over the theorem again, please?”

Kiyoko’s voice did not address his question. She paused for a moment as the video came to a close before she provided a succinct summary of the material.

She closed the lesson with, “Now, please do your best to reflect on the given lesson.”

Hinata was left in that abyss of pastel yellow. Words from his mind relevant to the subject matter drifted tumultuously across the contours of the impermeable sac. An unsurprisingly small smattering of words related back to this subject. He found it difficult to focus on the dry topic of geometry, one of his second year high school requirements.

Hinata tried to close his eyes. The image before him could not be forced away. He focused on an untarnished pocket and forcibly painted an image there. The view was from high above an unadulterated, green Earth with winding rivers and blue mountains and an overabundance of huge birds with magnificent flapping wings. It only lasted for a glorious moment. 

“Are you done thinking about what we’ve discussed?” Kiyoko asked, the words flat and rehearsed, like she was bored, “Then, let’s begin the quiz.”

And thus Hinata and the other two hundred second year students of the Karasuno block began their first nightly assessment. Hinata’s ranking before he was artificially coaxed from his inert state was 147 out of 200.


	2. Running With or Without Toast

Hinata rose with a gasp. One hand acted on its own to rip the sensors from his forehead and abandon them on his bed. The lights came on and his eyesight swirled with undulating blobs of color. He rose from his bed and completed his morning routine in a flurry. He breezed by his mother and sister still easing their way into the new day. Kiyoko prepared an insipid, balanced breakfast for the family. An episode of Computer Daily played on the television as Hinata ate with gusto. He wished the three ladies of the house a good day and left.

Hinata raced through the halls of the Karasuno block to arrive to his classroom first. He ran himself breathless, pushing his pace until the ache of exertion climbed from his chest up into his throat. His plain gakuran uniform felt damp on the backs of his legs and around his shoulders. The leather shoes on his feet were suffocating and pinched and blistered only his left foot’s pinky toe. He gulped large breaths that burned en route to his lungs. He darted between commuting members of the workforce and meandering students. Hinata charged through them all, keeping up his pace. The swish of his shirtsleeve grazing a passerby’s gave him a thrill- it tickled up the back of his neck and brought a smile to his face. He stormed through the entranceway of Karasuno High School and pressed through weary, clotted students to the sophomore wing.

A strong arm blocked his path, catching him mid-step. Before Hinata could complain at the interference, he noticed that he was now in a circle of three of his teammates. The eclectic bunch seemed to be in good spirits. They exchanged conniving glances. 

Hinata was the newest inductee to the Karasuno Computer Science Club, the pride and joy of the school. All of the members shared a joined passion for computer programming. They related well to each other and became fast friends. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays quickly grew to be Hinata’s favorite days of the week.

His face twisted in confusion. It was Tuesday. He rested his hands on his knees and gasped for air.

“Mornin’,” his friend Tanaka Ryuunosuke greeted, tan and sinewy, hair a close buzzcut. Tanaka clapped him on the back.

“Ah, Hinata we’re glad to have caught you,” explained Sugawara Koushi, the vice captain of the team, too affably for this time of the morning. 

Hinata raised his head. He met the vice captain’s eye suspiciously.

Sugawara smiled and looked to Sawamura, the team’s captain.

Sawamura cleared his throat and briefly informed Hinata that their team was going through a mid semester recruitment period. The upperclassmen had been carefully observing the second years’ rankings and a student by the name of Kageyama Tobio had caught their eye. He consistently ranked first among second years in the computer science field.

“And that’s where you come in,” Sawamura concluded.

“You two are in the same class, aren’t you? How about you give him a nudge in our direction?” insinuated Tanaka, elbowing Hinata playfully in the shoulder.

Hinata had heard of Kageyama Tobio. An image of dark, flat hair and eyes constantly glued to a tablet screen conspicuously splayed on his desk came to mind.

Kageyama Tobio was a name in his class uttered in fear. He was a tyrannical genius of computer science. His skill was unmatched, which prompted the intimidating nickname ‘King of the Keyboard’ among their peers. Even the administration recognized Kageyama’s overwhelming zeal when it came to programming. Marked as a caliber above the rest, Kageyama worked on an independent study in lieu of normal computer science class activities and assignments. 

Hinata felt curiosity stimulate his motivation. He said, “I’ll try my best.”

“We’re counting on you,” Sugawara replied.

Hinata waved farewell to his teammates and started his run again. He needed to get his heart rate up. Dashing down the hall, he beamed when he caught sight of the dark inside of his classroom. Shoes squeaked in protest as he skid to a halt. Hinata slid open the door to his classroom, midway through a satisfied self-congratulatory whoop for having arrived first. The automated lights flicked on, bringing white light into the seafoam green room.

The desk behind his was occupied. He was sitting with his face resting on his folded arms. He was breathing loudly through his parted mouth, slow and easy breaths that almost hitched into whistles on each steady exhale.

Hinata froze in place. A cold sweat washed over his heated, tired body. His own breath caught in his throat. His worked limbs became locked in place, screaming for oxygen. The door was beginning to warm up to his clammy palm. Sweat ran into his eye and he could not even blink a moment of the sight away.

Kageyama Tobio was sleeping on his desk.

Dumbfounded did not begin to describe Hinata. Tears pricked the corners of his eyes. His stomach rumbled in regret of Kiyoko’s morning nutritional supplement. He felt like he was swaying forward and back but his clamped hand on the door assured him otherwise.

Protocol had no flaws.

Schedules assigned to the people were adhered to. Lateness was not an option. Progress was the only choice. This was why the peoples of Japan had collectively decided to forgo frivolous sleep. Whimsy and wonder were not productive to science. As of year 20XX, all citizens voluntarily had a chip imbedded in the back of their left hand.

The EfficiencyChip. This chip monitored the host’s location and basic functions. It read all medical records and contained all traces of identification. And this chip did not let the citizen naturally enter sleep unless it was of biological necessity. Instead, controlled stasis programs provided by the government allowed for “rest.” During this time, students reviewed what they learned. Working people continued their research. Infants and toddlers mentally practiced the fundamental steps toward becoming autonomous.

Yet.

The name of the classroom AI was on his lips, the first syllable stuttering over and over, but he couldn’t push the air through to make a sound. He snapped his mouth shut and closed the sliding door with an audible click. He stared hard at the intercom and debated whether or not to summon a medical drone team to the room. The display clock blinking in the upper right corner told him there were thirty minutes before the start of class.

Hinata turned and walked careful, quiet steps over to Kageyama Tobio’s desk. He lowered his ear down to his mouth and felt the breath tickle his ear. Assured the breath did not feel too quick or shallow, he retracted. He put out his hand to shake his classmate by the shoulder and stopped short. Hinata had never roused someone from a slumber before. Was that considered impolite? Was there some pre coordinated etiquette to follow?

Hinata settled for prodding him in the shoulder, once shyly and once more firmly, feeling the fingernail of his pointer finger bow.

The hairs on Kageyama’s head settled slightly and caught the light at a new angle. His breathing hitched on an inhale with a low snore. He seemed otherwise unperturbed.

Hinata pulled his seat over in front of Kageyama’s desk and sat straddling the back support. He rested his head on folder arms that were on the cushioned leather chair. He leaned the back of the seat forward until he was almost at Kageyama’s eye level. Had they ever been properly introduced?

“Hey, Kageyama,” Hinata hissed.

The border of the plastic desk lit up with green light, knowing its occupant had been named. After a few moments, the light began to flash. The desk started to vibrate, on and off like an old mobile phone.

“Kageyama,” he said in an off-key arpeggio.

Hinata snickered. Just watching his classmate’s serious face, despite the relaxation of sleep, being jostled by an ornery school desk was too much. He began to feel the strength of the vibration through the soles of his shoes when he decided enough was enough. He clapped both his hands down on Kageyama’s shoulders and shook him with enough force for one forearm to be knocked off the edge of the desk, limp fingers dangling off the side.

“Kageyama Tobio!” Hinata yelled. His voice echoed over the sound of the obstreperous desk and the meditative peace of the room.

Kageyama’s fingers flexed and retreated back onto the surface of the desk. His kitten purr snore caught in his throat and his eyes slowly opened. Crust had gathered in the corner of his eyes. He sat up and wiped the sleep away. With a grumble, he reached over to the side of his desk to dismiss the alarm.

Silence returned to the room. Hinata became aware of his breathing and started to breathe slowly through his mouth to minimize the noise. He locked eyes with Kageyama. He noticed those dark brown eyes widen only the slightest bit before his visage settled into a harsh scowl. Little angry elevens crowded between his eyebrows.

Hinata recoiled, grabbing onto the back of the chair and leaning away. His heart, uncomfortably pounding away, fell into his stomach, stirring a profound burst of fear. He swallowed a lump in his throat, the sound infinite to his own ears. The air in the room vibrated under the weight of Kageyama Tobio’s gaze.

Then, it softened. He turned his head to the side, covered his mouth, and cleared his throat.

“So, you know now,” he said. His inclement stare returned to Hinata.

Hinata felt the sudden urge to backpaddle away from the conversation. ‘Oh, you were just resting your eyes right? This weather makes my eyes dry and tired too, haha!’ But no. He gripped the back of the chair and pressed his lips into a thin line. Steeling himself, perhaps.

“How do you do that? Were you really . . . sleeping?” Hinata asked. His attempt to suppress his excitement was a failure. He could feel the slight strain of a smile pulling on his cheeks. His toes started clenching in his shoes.

Kageyama snorted. “Something like that.”

Leaning in, Hinata replied, with interest, “But how do you do it naturally? Without the EfficiencyChip kicking in?”

“Nothing about sleeping is natural,” Kageyama explained, displaying a watch-like device strapped over the palm of his hand with a little compartment resting on the back. There was one small button but no display.

Hinata squinted his eyes at the little plastic device. “You made that?” he asked softly, then with the excitement creeping back in, “That’s amazing. Would you be willing to show me how it works?”

Kagayama averted his eyes. “Would you even understand?”

“Of course I would. You’re looking at one of the members of the Computer Science Club,” Hinata boasted.

“Yeah, I guess you are,” Kageyama replied, resigned. He doubled back and retorted, “Not that that means anything.”

Just as Hinata’s expression began to falter, the door to the classroom slid open and their classmates slowly filed in. They scattered their morning gossip and conversation over the building tension. Hinata grumbled under his breath and sat right in his seat. He rested his own head on folded arms and heaved a sigh. His meager pride was bruised but he couldn’t bring himself to return onto the offensive. Kageyama was scary. Even though his sleeping face was truly serene, if not a little contemplative.


	3. Watching the Second Hand

The last of Hinata’s classes for the day inched through its final moments. He was mentally losing the battle with his body’s urge to relax. The classroom was warm, the chair ergonomic, and the lecture lackluster. He felt the imagine weight begin to pull on his eyelids. A small smile formed behind the fingers supporting his chin. He liked the moment of intense relaxation, the sleepy prickle that started in his toes and crept upward. His thoughts started to drift until lucidity and logic clumsily slipped away. A vacant fog settled in the pocket of his mind, like God had cracked an egg over his head and had allowed nonsense to dribble over his ears. In that glorious moment, he felt jolts of spasms quake up and down his body. The EfficiencyChip embedded in the back of his left hand forced his hormones into overdrive, prevented him from achieving peace, and woke his mind.

The bell rang. 

A burning resolve filled Hinata. He collected his belongings hurriedly into his side bag and turned to face Kageyama. To his surprise, Kageyama was already halfway to the door. The classroom AI struggled to encourage him to slow down. No one stopped him during his abrupt exit. Hinata watched him go with his mouth half open and his hand poised to question. He faltered, crestfallen. 

The way out of the school felt unfamiliar. The tiles of the hallway were great enough for two of Hinata’s slow strides. He watched the speckled floor and pondered the idea of dreams, of free sleep. A trodden piece of paper caught his eye and he stopped pick it up. It was a printout of a test someone had failed. Their identity was concealed by their nine digit school ID number. Hinata had eked out a passing grade on this particular assessment.

A taunting voice came from behind. “Well, Hinata, what possessed you to print that failure? Don’t tell me that’s the threshold for mother’s bombastic refrigerator display?”

Whirling around, he crumbled the paper in fist and shook his head erratically. Another teammate of his, Tsukishima, stood behind him. He put together a slapdash defense. “You’ve got it all wrong. This ain’t even mine. And don’t casually mention my mother like that.”

Tsukishima was over a head taller than Hinata, with a short crop of wavy blonde hair and an ever present equivocal glint in his eye that brushed Hinata against his grain. He made a hobby of riling his teammate’s up. Hinata was convinced that Tsukishima went out of his way to prick him more than others. He dared to crane his neck to meet that confident face. The view was almost dizzying. He charted Tsukishima’s jawline from sparse sideburn to strong chin.

Tsukishima raised an unnoticeably light eyebrow and tilted his head to the side. Amusement curved his lips into an overweening grin. He brushed by Hinata and rejoined the throng of students vacating the school.

“See you tomorrow,” he called, facing away. He raised a hand in curt farewell.

Hinata sighed and watched Tsukishima weave seamlessly into the crowd, from which he was easily visible. He bit his lip and crushed the paper tighter. The way home felt long.

The entrance to his family’s unit was a numbered door with a touch screen intercom. He placed his left hand over the screen. He swore he could hear the static of his EfficiencyChip interacting with the system. In a moment, the door’s deadbolt lock clicked open. Hinata gripped the dull gray handle and let himself in. 

He dumped his belongings in his bedroom and changed out of his uniform into more comfortable clothes. Carrying a pair of cross trainers out to the door, Hinata tossed his uniform into the laundry chute in the hall and made for the door.

Kiyoko stopped him on his way out, as she always did.

“Are you heading over to the fitness center today?” she asked, updating his itinerary on the family board.

“Yes, Kiyoko-san,” he replied, hand impatiently curling around and jiggling the handle of the outside door.

“Please go and come back,” the gentle voice said, drifting through the front door into the corridor before the door slammed shut.

Hinata felt a spasm of guilt for blowing off the polite yet invasive AI. He made a note to apologize and greet her appropriately when he returned. His cheeks burned with an uncomfortable shame from his inner turmoil of how to treat the sentient machine that controlled the building. Maybe because he heard a rumor that her rarely displayed graphic avatar was a beautiful, young woman with glasses and an undeniably sexy beauty mark on her cheek. He shook his head as he stomped over to the fitness center.

Hinata ran himself ragged, his frustration towards the situation with Kageyama a powerful fuel to keep him going. He felt his knees quaking as he walked for a cooldown phase. The pleasantly cool, circulating air hit his skin. The rush from his run was ran high - a combination of elation and success and simple joy and giddiness clouded his mind. This combined with an almost painful tightness in his chest and a minutely unsettled stomach that he desperately wanted to dump some water into. Hinata lifted his chin to bare his sweaty neck to the soft gale of the fans and felt his hair curl on his neck.

He stepped off the machine on one wobbly leg and giggled at his own success. He loved making his legs like jelly even if it felt like acid flowed through his veins. The machine began to self clean as he toweled himself off on his way to the exit. He preferred to shower in his familial block (even though Kiyoko always mentioned that there are bathing facilities in the fitness center). With the thin orange towel over his head, he almost missed him.

Kageyama was looking at him from the corner of the room, the weight system in his hands like air in comparison to the forcefulness of his glare.

Again, Hinata quickly averted his eyes with that sudden surprise akin to missing the last step in a staircase. Brief panic and freefall.

Seeing him was not uncommon - they lived in the same ward of Karasuno - but now Hinata noticed Kageyama. He wanted the secrets to unlocking his mind’s dreams. He had a responsibility to his team. How could he broach either subject?

“Hinata,” Kageyama called out from across the room. Heads turned and eyed the bold second year curiously and (mostly) without judgment.

Hinata yelped an affirmative in a voice cracked tenor an octave too high and accidentally letting his sweaty towel fall to the floor.

Kageyama was significantly closer for his next statement, within three meters, when he announced, “My bad about earlier.”

Hinata reached down to retrieve his towel and stood up to find himself facing Kageyama’s chest. He took a comfort step backwards.

“Yeah?”

The beginnings of a scowl marked Kageyama’s brow and corners of his lips but the overall effect was much softer. Hinata did not want to call the effort to not be scary as pouty (but it totally was). His fists clenched at his sides.

“I want to show you something,” Kageyama explained vaguely, pointing to the back of his left hand, “Come by around 20:00, don’t be late.”

Feeling somewhat flushed at the allegation, Hinata retorted, “Like hell I’d be late!” He brushed by Kagayama and made a point to stamp his feet loudly on his way to the door and throw his towel over his shoulder with a whack against his upper back.

“Well, you better not be,” Kageyama shouted as Hinata left.

Maybe he realized two facts a little too late.

Hinata had agreed to go over to a stranger’s block.

He had allowed Kageyama to get the last word.


	4. Wearing a Uniform During Free Time

Hinata swung open the door with an over enthusiastic, “I’m home, Kiyoko!”

“Welcome home,” she replied with what Hinata imagined was a bit of bashful happiness.

Hinata showered and combed his hair. He dressed again in his freshly cleaned school uniform before he went to the dining room. A hot plate of food, some assorted seasonings, and a single pair of chopsticks were waiting for him at the square table with bar stool height chairs. He thanked Kiyoko for the food and ate dispassionately. 

“Working late again,” Kiyoko explained without prompt, showing the family schedule on the wall, “Your sister ate while you were out. I suspect she is doing this on purpose. I do not know why.”

“That makes two of us,” Hinata replied, spraying grains of rice across the table before swallowing, “Sorry, Kiyoko.”

Kiyoko only sighed.

“Oh, I need to update my itinerary,” Hinata said. The screen for family planning switched to draft and review mode. “Visiting classmate Kageyama Tobio at his block.”

Kiyoko changed the chart accordingly, playing a successful tone when she finished. “New friend?”

“I guess so,” Hinata said, “I’ll need directions.”

Kiyoko said nothing, choosing to only play the same tone again. A slight vibration tingled from his pocket.

Hinata left the dishes on the table and thanked Kiyoko again before sending off. He withdrew his cell phone and navigated through the building to the Kageyama residence. A speaker adjacent to the door greeted him. It was the same Kiyoko. It struck Hinata as odd. He figured each Kiyoko would have a different personality to reflect the household.

His classmate answered the door, hair dripping and in disarray, plain thin white towel hanging around his neck. A red toothbrush was nestled between his lips.

“Evening,” he said around the toothbrush, a dribble of white foam escaping down his chin.

“What are you brushing your teeth here for, weren’t you expecting me?” Hinata demanded, pointing accusingly at the offending toothbrush.

Kageyama smeared the toothpaste onto the back of his hand and hastened out of the entranceway over to the washroom. The automatic door was left open to allow Hinata access to the quaint economy family block. He gargled loudly, the sound echoing down the hall.

Hinata removed his shoes in the genkan, wrinkling his nose at the persistent dampness lingering inside. A shame blossomed in his chest as he caught brief whiff of unpleasant odor while tucking his shoes primly in line with the small step, facing outwards. His nerves were only amplified by the uncertainty of his purpose here. The door slid closed, the shine of the metallic gloss showing Hinata his own shudder. 

The Kageyama household was quiet. A ticking clock could be heard in another room. A failing fluorescent light clicked feebly at the end of the hallway, unable to illuminate the Kandinsky art print that someone had decided to hang sideways. The flooring was warm pine, rippled with grain, that creaked like an apology, quiet and uncertain. Yellow walls enclosed the rooms, the unfortunate swatch of nicotine stain sold to families under the false name 'honey'.

He ran his hand across the cool, uneven surface of the wall as he took apprehensive steps. He brought in his lower lip snugly between his teeth, eyes tracing up and down the hideous yellow that could never be compared to the glorious sunlight. It reminded him of empty rooms and endless voices. 

Then, his hand came to a simple picture frame. A little dusty in the corners though well loved nonetheless. A grade school aged Kageyama Tobio with three teeth missing in a row right in the front, eyes only a squint with the force of his smile, was holding up a certificate in the center of a group of other students. He had the same simple haircut that was in the midst of being affectionately ruffled by another student. 

Hinata puffed in mild amusement. The King of the Keyboard: Kindergarten addition.

Kageyama emerged (minus a towel and plus a judgemental divot marring his brow.) He made a casual glance up Hinata’s body. “Is that what you’re wearing?”

Confusion flickered over Hinata’s face before he looked down to check that he was, indeed, wearing his uniform. Kiyoko had even pressed it for him while he was in the shower and it smelled of fabric softener.

“Why,” he paused, piecing his question together, “would I wear something different?”

Kageyama shrugged. “Figured you would want to wear something more comfortable.”

He ushered Hinata into a small bedroom. White cream walls were decorated with various plaques and certifications from Junior High. He certainly did a lot of growing in those years. He stood at various coaches’ shoulders that he met the eye of at the end. There was also a poster pinned above his twin sized bed with the phrase, “Do I dare disturb the universe?” If one laid to enter stasis, the poster would appear upside down.

Hinata rated the room as unimpressive at best, not that his was any better. Solid gray bedsheets with white pillow cases. Clean, open roll down desk with a laptop personal computer sitting closed. There was one faux wooden dresser with all the drawers shut tight, freckled with knicks in the cherry stain that betrayed its age. On top sat an unplugged soldering iron, a roll of gleaming solder partially unraveled, and a small black pocket comb. The cheap carpeting felt as coarse as the type in his own bedroom through his thin socks.

Kageyama chose to seat himself on his bed and pull his schoolbag into his lap. He unzipped it, the sound jarring in the painful silence.

Hinata flinched, feeling jittery. He started to drum his idle fingers against his thigh. Questions pushed themselves to the forefront of his mind though he decided to pay them no heed.

The curious little watch like device was brought forth from the insides of the school bag in Kageyama’s delicate grasp. Sleek strap of black plastic with a blank watch face being grazed by his thumb, a proud smile and crinkle in the corner of his eyes. Like a father brushing the fine hairs of his newborn.

“Kiyoko,” he announced, not looking up from the mysterious device cradled in his hands, “I’m going to be working on my independent study for now. If you would please.”

“Yes, I understand. Work hard, Kageyama Tobio and Hinata Shouyou. I’ll see myself out,” Kiyoko answered, clipped and succinct.

The intercom screen by the door went dark.

“What?” Hinata asked, looking incredulously at the intercom, “Is she gone?”

“For now,” Kageyama explained, “Exploiting a legal loophole for patent research.”

Hinata felt fear curl up his spine like a window shade flying up to close. He couldn’t prevent the little stutter. “Is this illegal? Because I didn’t sign up for that -”

“Dreaming is illegal,” Kageyama objected, then amended, “Practically. Like, you can’t sleep. That’s illegal. And you didn’t ‘sign up’ for that, either. Someone else decided that for us.”

Hinata’s mouth felt dry, tongue sticky with film. He felt the urge to swallow and couldn’t force down air.

“You wanted to sleep, didn’t you?” he asked, a lightness in his voice. Insecurity. “Do you have an internal chip model A or B?”

Hinata could only flap his lips open and closed while emitting no sound. Shivers of excitement raced down his body. Even his toes and the tips of his ears tingled with sudden anticipation.

“A chip,” he managed.

“Oh, that’s convenient,” Kageyama commented, shyness ebbing away, “I have an A chip, too.”

He looked down at the watch and back up to Hinata. He presented the watch, holding it up by one strap. “This is the DreamTime 2.5. My pride and joy.”

Hinata brought his face in closer to inspect the little components box. He tried to imagine the tiny bundle of wires and resistors and other stuff, like a jumbled mess of rainbows all stuffed inside. Or maybe it was an orthogonal, color coded masterpiece. He inwardly jabbed at himself knowing the former sounds much more his style. 

“It’s so small,” he remarked.

“You’re small,” Kageyama returned, barbed defensive raised.

“It was a compliment!”

“Oh, well, anyway,” he deflected, “Give me your hand.”

Hinata did. Easy as that.

Kageyama immediately and methodically strapped the DreamTime onto his hand, watch face on the back of his hand. He tightened the strap to the smallest notch like a nurse adjusting a blood pressure cuff, never glancing up at his patient, eyes only for the device. His face was a placid concentration, unlined, with a hard look in his eyes. He smelled of shampoo and faintly of mint.

“Wait!” Hinata demurred, pulled his hand back, “Should I lay down or something first?”

“Calm down.” Kageyama tightened his grip on Hinata’s hand. “DreamTime only disables the chip’s efficiency mechanism that keeps you awake. Natural sleep doesn’t strike you like lightning.”

It was all new and strange. Will he slowly close his eyes and snooze on the floor, drool leaking onto the carpet? Perhaps a conflict, where Kageyama will have to subdue his frantically jerking legs and arms as flails in fitful sleep? There were classes tomorrow morning. He was not too concerned with his academic standing (much to his mother’s dismay), but he always went. . 

“You’re worrying,” Kageyama interjected, “I can hear your stomach gurgling from here.”

It was true. Hinata’s stomach was turned over and beginning to ache. He was thankful that the sensation of too much glutinous saliva and acid taste in the back of his throat hadn’t started. Oh, maybe it did? He swallowed hard and grit his teeth.

Kageyama let go of his hand.

The DreamTime was light. The plastic clung to his sweaty palm. A pinprick of an LED indicator light on the watch face flashed, mimicking the pounding of his heart in his chest. The DreamTime appeared entirely innocuous. It made no noise and Hinata could feel no tickle of indication of any hidden moving parts.

“Is it working?” Hinata asked. He brought the DreamTIme up to his face to examine. A crease appeared in his brow and he drew his lips inside of his mouth.

“Yep, that’s all it does,” Kageyama affirmed.

Hinata opened his mouth, hesitated, licked his lips, and said, “Now what?”

“Are you sleepy?” His face was somber. Though, there was something in his eyes. They weren’t the distance, empty eyes of a fish looking down. Focused.

“Not really,” admitted Hinata.

Kageyama held his chin in thought. He struck his own palm with a fist and a metaphorical lightbulb shined over his head.

“Lay down,” he commanded, standing up and gesturing to his bed. He pointed to his bedroom door. “I’ll make you some tea.” With that, Kageyama was out the door and down the hallway. The pitter patter of his house slippers followed him about the house.

With no time to argue, Hinata found himself half heartedly laying on Kageyama’s bed, legs hanging off the side and using his own arm as a pillow. He stared at Kageyama’s laptop.

There was a yellow post-it note on the back of it.

Curiosity got the better of him. He tip toed over to the desk and settled into the reclining office chair.

The note read in tall, thin letters with hardly any space between them: DreamTime2.51000.

Hinata steepled his fingers and chuckled to himself. That certainly looked like a project name to him. He pressed his hand against the static dump on the front of the desk. He opened the laptop and pushed the power button. The computer whirled instantly to life and the screen flickered on. Nondescript black to gray gradient background with two perfectly spaced columns of files on the right hand side.

And there it was - a Comet file titled DreamTime2.51000.

His fingertips tingled with electricity as they danced on the mousepad. The sensitivity was very low - Hinata suspected that Kageyama used some kind of retinal tracker. After a couple of seconds, he successfully coaxed the pointer over to the file.

Right click. Open in Comet.

Comet started to load. Hinata’s chest started to hurt from holding his breath for too long. He relaxed against Kageyama’s chair, one identical to his own. He could feel a different level of softness in the upper back and the height was a few centimeters beyond Hinata’s comfort level. He felt like he started to pick Kageyama’s brain by settling into his seat. This was where the magic happened. Where the school wide famous King of the Keyboard worked on his independent projects.

Comet’s logo quietly shot across the screen to signal its loading completion.

Hinata tried to recline, leaning as far back as the chair would allow. The chair set off a shrill series of admonishing beeps and toppled backwards. Hinata rolled socked feet over head onto the carpet. He rubbed the back of his head, more startled than hurt.

“Stupid chair,” he grumbled.

Hastened footsteps warned Hinata of Kageyama’s approach before he burst through the door, house slippers and all. Alarm paled his face.

Kiyoko’s voice called from the hallway, “Tobio, household -”

“Got it, Kiyoko,” he snapped over his shoulder. He kicked his slippers into the hallway and one slammed against the opposite wall toe first into the sheetrock emitting a sharp thwap.

“Unusual sound recorded in the hallway, please confirm status,” Kiyoko requested.

Kageyama threw himself to his knees in front of Hinata, a glimmer of a wince as his skin met with the thin, rough carpet. He seized Hinata’s hand with an unexpected tenderness.

He asked, gruffness infecting his voice, “Just what do you think you’re doing, dumbass?”

Too flustered, heat rushing to his face, Hinata yanked his hand away. Those long, adept fingers pinched their firm grasp ever stronger. Hinata chanced a glance at Kageyama’s expression and discerned the grimace to be of intense concern. He was fixated on the DreamTime. He relaxed his grip and allowed Kageyama his inspection. His wrist was torqued right to left.

“Please confirm status,” Kiyoko insisted. An alarm without a sleep function.

Hinata smiled, a combination of discomfort and embarrassment, and rolled his shoulder. “I just wanted to see your code.”

Something about the way his fingers trembled at the words, the spark trying to escape the trepidation shading his eyes, and the breath that caught in Kageyama’s throat clued him in that maybe he hadn’t needed to sneak to the laptop. Long seconds passed before he cleared his throat.

“You want to see?” he asked, clarifying. He dropped his hand to the floor like a plucked dandelion.

“Yeah, I’m really interested in what you can do,” Hinata said in full earnest.

“Okay.” Kageyama paused. He stood and righted his chair. “Sure.”

“Alerting local authorities. Please remain calm. Help is on the way,” Kiyoko assured, her remarkably human voice soft and warm.

Kageyama ran to the door and stuck his head out into the hallway. “Kiyoko! Everything is perfectly fine, can you not?”

“Is that so? Carrying on then,” she quipped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comet is a development tool for aspiring programmers at Karasuno High. (It's based on Eclipse.)


	5. Strangers with Matching Phone Straps

“Amazing,” Hinata marveled, tea hot in his hands, his face lit by the white light of the computer monitor.

They sat together in the quiet, enjoying tea and some carrot and celery sticks Kageyama had brought out as a snack. He had set up a small folding table at a height comfortable to sit on the floor. There were plain black coasters, though each boy opted to hold his drink himself.

Kageyama shook his head, waving a hand alongside his face. “It could always be better. It’s also crazy illegal, so recognition isn’t really the goal. Kind of the worst possible outcome.”

Hinata touched the monitor with his forefinger. “What’s this here? Unread variable?”

He brushed Hinata’s hand away from his screen and coughed once. “That’s an attempt at concealing the true intentions of the program.”

Hinata gave a little laugh at that. “So you mean, that’s your way of trying to be bad? I wish I had your problems.”

He kept scrolling through. Occasionally asking clarifying questions. 

“What’s this random string here?” 

“That’s a regular expression for an unsigned double.” 

“A what?”

“Computer speak for a number that may be positive or negative that may have a decimal component or not.”

Maybe it was then that Hinata fully realized that creating programs did not necessarily include knowing exactly how each component of the code behaved. Anyone could copy this stretch of symbols and get their desired outcome. Hinata did not need to know how to write his own regular expressions. This was why he was a part of a community. Everything has mostly been done, one just needs to dig through and find the right parts.

Kageyama had to work all by himself.

All the more reason to invite him to stop by the club. His jaw tightened when he realized he had almost forgotten why he had agreed to come along in the first place. The mission from the upperclassman had long since taken the backseat.

Another question popped up in his mind. “How fast is it?”

Kageyama winced. “Well, that’s kind of a complicated question. It’s not even the same as how my computer does it to a ‘fake’ EfficiencyChip.”

“Like parabolic?” Hinata guessed.

“Probably worse,” he mumbled.

“Not aiming for the Turing Award this year, then?”

Kageyama furrowed his brows, snapping with disbelief, “That’s for like contributing to the greater good of the computing world, not for undermining one of its successes. Besides, it’s easier to override existing programs than body systems and minds.”

Hinata hummed in thought and drummed his fingers that rested cupped around his mud. “I guess you’re right. I wonder who thought up the chips anyway.”

“You don’t even know? What have you been doing these last four years?” Kageyama questioned, incredulous.

Hinata sat his cup down on the table. He stuck his thumb into his chest and straightened his back.

“My goal has been to make every piece of code I contribute to the world as fast as possible! Log speed!” He stretched out his arm with a snap. “Like zoom!”

Kageyama nodded furiously in concurrence then added, “But zoom? Not-” He slammed his fist into his open palm. “-like bam!”

“That’s good too. Oh, or-” A sound of his hands clapping once followed by a low whistle. “zap and speed~.”

A voiceless hiss and the sound of one hand quickly sliding off the other. “Whoosh. .”

“Exactly, exactly!” cheered Hinata, face warm with amusement. “You know, I think we would work well together. Say, why don’t you join our club? You’d be amazing!”

“You think so?” Kageyama asked quietly, face flushed with pride.

“Totally,” Hinata affirmed.

Kageyama and Hinata spent the next hour scouring over his code to analyze its speed and time leaks. They drank their tepid, almost bitter tea and abandoned their mugs once drained. The vegetable sticks became dried and forgotten. The celery started to go limp. Kageyama’s family came home and retired to their rooms without a word. Kiyoko’s voice came and went, muffled through the wall.

As the hour neared eleven, Hinata had slumped against Kageyama’s bed. He hadn’t even felt it coming. His eyelids grew heavy and it felt like a great struggle to return out of each blink. His head nodded.


	6. The Train Stops at Your Station . . .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a dream.

Hinata’s mother and sister were sitting at the kitchen table. Natsu jumped up on her chair and made an exaggerated outward gesture with her arms into some kind of outline. His mother just laughed and peeled an orange with her thumb.

“Right?” Natsu asked.

Her voice sounded like it came from Hinata. He felt cold. He couldn’t understand how his mother replied. He remembered all of the syllables, but not how they were strung together. He could see the spray of the juice spurting from the orange as she dug her finger tenaciously into the skin. He did not smell the citrus.

Natsu stood on one foot, teetering the other on the lip of the chair.

The moment that it occurred to Hinata that it was dangerous the chair began to tip. He tried to yell and only heard air leave his throat. His mother laughed her usual tired laugh and tore the fruit deliberately in two.


	7. An Unchecked Email Notification

Hinata's chest constricted with confused anxiety and he shied his face away from the lights.

“This loop here looks like it could be quicker.” Kageyama’s voice was only a pleasant murmur above him. 

Hinata stretched his legs under the desk and his socked toes grazed Kageyama’s foot. Not quite aware enough to be embarrassed, Hinata curled his legs up to his chest for warmth and rested his chin on his own shoulder.


	8. . . . People Pour Out Onto the Platform . . .

Hinata was walking up a set of stairs towards the school cafeteria. The stairwell was crowded with other students and faculty alike. People spoke and laughed and sneezed and complained all around him. He was fighting the current, which struck him as odd. 

Was this a drill?

The fabric of the other students’ uniforms was cool on the backs of his hands. As he continued to climb, he noticed girls catching his eye as they passed. They offered no friendly nod or smile. He caught himself looking at their hair before their faces, absently noting the style and shade. One girl he had wavy dark hair in tiny pigtails that kept her short hair off her shoulders. His hand brushed the hem of the girl’s pleated skirt and he felt the tip of his pinky finger touch the soft skin of her thigh for less than a breath. He felt the urge to shove his hands into his pockets, ashamed at the flare of excitement.

Hinata finally reached the top of the stairs, feeling weary and thirsty. He was suddenly face to face with one of his teammates, Nishinoya. His hair was in his usual style, bleached strip of hair in his bangs with the lot of his hair spiked up with gel. They stood eye to eye, Nishinoya’s hands on his hips. He wore his school jacket open. There was a strip of text on his shirt.

Nishinoya smiled, teeth almost too huge for his small stature. He placed his hands on Hinata’s chest. His small nimble fingers felt repulsively ticklish to his skin, like the feeling of a nine volt battery on your tongue. Nishinoya pushed him gently, sending him tumbling backwards over the stairs. 

Hinata floated over his classmates, drifting feather-light overhead. He bounced weightlessly from unnoticing head to head. He took care to avoid the students with intricate hair styles. Then, rounding the corner, a head of hair half buried in the surrounding height of the other students caught his eye. He jumped to intercept, inexplicably motivated. Other students had begun to notice him, now. People watched nonplussed, making sounds of appreciation as if Hinata were a firework. He landed behind his target, again feeling his weight as his feet touched down. He stumbled forward and buried his face into short, wavy red hair, gripping the other student’s uniform for support.

The student turned and Hinata locked eyes with himself. Another version of Hinata, who carried textbooks for extra studying, flowed naturally with his peers, and eyed him with disdain. That Hinata raised his nose and turned away, leaving the other like an island in the river of moving students.


	9. Point Your Shoes Towards the Door

The lights in the room were off, but the computer was on. Kageyama was a benign silhouette. Hinata felt that coldness had crept into his extremities. His lower back ached from his angle against the bed. He stretch his arms out with a displeased grunt, feeling his neck and right shoulder protest his abuse.

Kageyama turned his head and raised his eyebrows. He met Hinata’s eye and then put out one hand, palm up. He gesticulated vaguely towards his bed.

“You can use it if you want,” he whispered. He turned back to the computer and started to shut it down.

How much time has passed? Hinata dimly wondered. He pulled himself onto Kageyama’s bed. His uniform was somewhat uncomfortable. He could feel damp patches from sweat under his arms and the seat of his pants. He looked around the room. The table from earlier had been cleared away. There was another mug of steaming tea on a coaster next to Kageyama’s laptop on the desk.

Before he finished curling up on Kageyama’s bed, he found himself drifting. He could hear Kiyoko making an announcement that he did not care enough to listen attentively to. The pillow his face was buried in had a particular scent he could not place. For some reason, he expected Kageyama to smell like canned air and cheap soap. It was not like that at all. His bed smelled like tea and a detergent without fabric softener.

The computer fan whirled into silence. Very quiet footsteps made their way over to the control panel by the door. In an instant, a flash of light that was Kiyoko’s eyes and ears re-entered and quickly darkened to suit the low light. 

He felt the darkness before he saw it. Warm and encroaching, umbra wrapped around his arms and legs like a cocoon.


	10. . . . And the Doors Close.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dreams are confusing and winding and I'm never really sure if a sequence written could ever be accurately written without a little bit of both. Of confusion and winding, that is. Grinding teeth over the lack of confidence doesn't do a writer any good, so here is Hinata's final dream.

There was an insect on the wall of his room. His vision flashed black. The insect sprouted iridescent scarab wings and flew into the hallway. Alluring, a mix between emerald and oil slick had Hinata following behind wordlessly. His feet were heavy, shaking the room around him with every step. The quake of his walk was deafening. He rounded the corner into a library. The insect landed on an intercom, its front legs caressing its mandibles. With one flutter and a shower of sparkles, it shed its wings. They drifted slowly to the floor, catching the light, and glimmering with noxious secretions.

He reached out, arm feeling encased in an iron cast. He fought fading vision and pushed forward. Another step, and books began to pour from the shelves around him. The sound of flipping pages as books continued to spill spooked the bug. It emitted a shrill and nostalgic sound.

Hinata fell to his knees and books covered him, colors muted.

 

Blinding sunlight. His hands shielded his eyes as he examined his surroundings. He had a indiscernible gut feeling that he was standing on the rooftop of the Karasuno complex.

There was a girl standing all alone. There was nothing up here. No solar panels or satellite dishes. Only the bleak concrete gray, pristine expanse and the girl ahead. Her dark hair caught a breeze and flipped her hair over her shoulder. A pale hand with long fingers and a beautiful, dainty wrist combed through her hair. Effortless, not a knot or a tangle down its length. Her white blouse looked freshly pressed and stiff to wear underneath her beige sweatervest. A plaited skirt was modestly a few fingers’ width above the knee, curvy thighs down to slim calves were covered by opaque black tights.

She turned. There was a plain wireless headset framing her face, microphone curled along her jawline. Her thin framed glasses partially reflected the setting sun. Her eyelashes were full and thick. Her lips part, her lower lip sparkled with gloss, plump and inviting. She looked past him into the light.

“It’s twelve o’clock,” she said, no honey in her words, “All students must enter stasis by one thirty in order to complete tonight’s assignment.”

Hinata took a step backwards, scuffing his littlest toe on the concrete. The wind was gusting, but Hinata could only hear his own quickening pulse. He felt naked, the wind brushing his chest, the backs of his arms, the soreness in his thighs and tousling his hair. And he was not ashamed.

 

He took flight.

Over a river, he flew. He swooped low enough to dip his hand. The water was warm and viscous, like dragging a hand through saliva. The slime clung to his hand, creating strings when he attempted to separate his fingers.

His feet touched down in a meadow. He saw this from above as an eye in the sky, disembodied soul hovering over his confused shell of body. He watched as he clumsily stomped across a patch of purple wildflowers. Another figure entered the field and Hinata’s soul could feel it was Kageyama. He was carrying his laptop and was smiling.

His body flinched when he noticed the other boy. Then, he too broke into a smile. The air was cool and the colors were bright. A hand, acting on its own, dragged through the wildflowers and caught a thistle. Beads of blood trickled down his forearm. The flowers were beautiful. He hugged them to his chest and let himself fall backwards to the ground, flat on his back in a bed of flowers. High grass tickled his nose and plants all around flinched back into position.

Kageyama knelt beside him, balancing his laptop on one hand, a curious expression on his face.

An inner peace washed over Hinata and he felt like he was resting belly down on a cloud. He was only watching his form at on whimsy without thought or consequence. One finger touched along the edge of Kageyama’s laptop and he grinned. His hand got caught and his palm turned skyward, the pinpricks from thistle thorns started to flow freely, dripping onto the grass and staining the cuff of Kageyama’s shirt.

“These are your programming hands,” Kageyama muttered.

A hand towel clamped around the oozing cuts. A puff of wind blew a storm of freed dandelion seeds to catch in their clothes. Cawing from two crows could be heard from a nearby tree on the outskirts of the meadow.

Hinata hummed to himself. The alma mater of their high school that signals the beginning of lunchtime at noon. He was wildly off-key and too fast through the long notes. Karasuno on an original theme. He could not tell if he had thought it or Kageyama had suggested it. He closed his eyes first, then his hand around Kageyama’s.

The eye in the sky’s view went hazy. A golden yellow fog rolled in and settled in the field.


	11. Spinning a Pencil Around Your Finger

PART 2 - The Year Before

 

There’s the know-how. The taking of pre-existing code and successfully recycling. Understand each individual pilfered piece and one could get the desired outcome in any situation.

Then, there’s the know-why. The knowledge of each building block on a bit-level. Vocabulary for each component, history of how it came to be, and for which specific purpose.

Kageyama Tobio was a professional of his tools, of his programming knowledge, of both his hardware and software. He could type with an accuracy that put court scribes of the past to shame. He spent most of his free time submerged in independent research. He loved the hot topics of the computing niche and the groundbreaking movements of the past. The great minds that helped found their very society were his heroes. His dream.

Even in class, he opted to ignore the lecturer in favor of reading his tablet hidden in his desk. He was aware that it was obvious. His grades suffered, too. He did not need ancient history or Japanese grammar lessons where he was going. So, he continued his plan to pointedly ignore any attempts at instruction. He would be force fed the information overnight regardless.

Kageyama arrived at the classroom with about five minutes to spare. He sat in his usual seat and immediately took out his tablet to continue where he left off in the biography of one of the lead researchers in EfficiencyChip science.

There was this guy in front of him. Got to class early, sweaty and out of breath. Bangs clung to his forehead and his orange hair was dulled to dark copper from dampness.

“Morning, Kageyama,” he greeted casually with a wave.

Kageyama wrote off the brightness in his eyes. People often lost the skip in their step after locking eyes with Kageyama first thing in the morning, but Hinata was the exception.

Kageyama wasn’t exactly the bright-eyed bushy-tailed type. He logged hours on his in-progress projects before designated stasis minimum. If he could skip out without the fear of academic probation, he would. He spent his days either in a groggy slump or invigorated by the promise of expanding his programming knowledge. He managed through school from that spark.

Thirty seconds until first lecture, a jolt shook him down to his phalanges and brought him back to attention. He felt like a dog with a shock collar. 

Instead of learning about the poetry exchange customs of the Heian Period, he was engrossed in a journal written back during the Information Age. Written by one of the Millennium Prize winners, a team leader claimed that his biggest breakthrough for the challenge occurred to him in a dream. This man, with a PhD in Mathematics and a Master’s in Computer Science, was one of the contributors to the EfficiencyChip project during its infancy. He claimed that his subconscious mind guided him to success.

Kageyama scoffed out loud. He set down his tablet and glared at the Hinata’s back, not wanting to look up at the lecturer. Hinata turned around in his seat to chance a glance at him before retreating, back straightened and pen poised. Nerves jiggled Hinata's ankle up and down.

The soothing monotone of the teacher passed uselessly through his ears. He spun his mechanical pencil about his finger to bring his attention to something else. His mind kept trying to decipher what it could mean to have ideas occur to you in your dreams. Sleep was officially declared archaic. He scratched at the skin hiding the microchip embedded in his left hand with the tip of his pencil.

The lecturer stopped for a gulp of water. Tension built in the room due to the sudden silence. The air conditioner kicked on and cooled air wafted over the students. One girl cleared her throat in the front row. The lecture resumed.

It was absolutely ridiculous, he thought to himself.

Kageyama looked to his right and noticed his neighbor with wireless earbuds leaning his face on his hand. Was his blonde hair a biological option or a cosmetic alteration? The biological option program was one of Kageyama’s favorite topics. He felt a little flutter in his chest and the sting of a tear in the corner of his eye. Oh, what he wouldn’t give to have that kind of skill.

His teachers called him a genius. They were babysitting him until he could be shipped off to college where his talent could be molded into something useful to society. Their help and instruction in the programming field has been to push him to improve the clarity and efficiency (of course) of his abilities.

There were ten minutes left in the lesson. The professor, without missing a syllable, reached over from his presentation and sent a message to an individual on the roster with one deft swipe of his stylus. Kageyama saw a new notification pop-up on his tablet to discover he had received a summoning to the faculty office. Another hassle to be dealt with later. He rolled his eyes and locked his tablet screen. He could feel himself scowling.

In front of him, Hinata’s stance stiffened before slouching over onto his desk, a grumble escaping from behind folded arms.

Had he been daydreaming?

Kageyama wondered where other people’s minds wandered when they did not receive enough stimulus. He always returned to Comet. The words of his thoughts were color coded matching what kind of data they’d be. He thought how many English words he used on a daily basis. The ones he didn’t understand the meaning of were highlighted in yellow like the cause of a compiler error. 

Hinata was shocked back to attention by his EfficiencyChip. He let out a throaty gasp and turned red about the ears from the class’ stares and giggles. He rubbed the base of his skull then looped around to massage the lobe of his right ear. He heaved a sigh.

Did he lose his dream? Kageyama wanted to know.

What would Hinata even dream about? Kageyama couldn’t even begin to guess. He knows that Hinata was the most recent addition to the Karasuno Computer Science Club and that his skill was average at best. He occasionally just has strokes of sheer genius that can’t be ignored. His execution left something to be desired. Kageyama was angered almost to the point of tears when he witnessed the disaster that can be called Hinata’s code writing. He patched together existing useless code haphazardly. He chose unclear names of variables and methods alike. Spacing inconsistency. No commentation whatsoever! Peer reviewing ten lines of Hinata’s work was like pulling teeth.

But it worked. Code only a motherboard could love. Results in a heartbeat and a half. Those were Hinata’s good days.

Debugging days were impossible. What kind of mind would have thought this was effective? Why are the working ideas brilliant but failures utterly unsalvageable? How would those twists of his subconscious mind dream?

Kageyama found himself curious about something other than programming for the first time in years. He needed to know. The skin between his fingers itched with want and anticipation. He clicked his tongue and brought his tablet back up. Time to research.


	12. Nerves From Midterms

The bell cut the teacher off mid-sentence. He gathered his materials into a brown briefcase. The class stood as he made his way out of the room. Then, they settled into their twenty minute break between periods. Forty minutes of class work followed by twenty minutes of intellectual rest was ordained by the government before Kageyama’s birth. Students were free to wander the school zone.

Kageyama decided to leave the classroom to get himself a drink from a vending machine near the faculty office, considering that he needed to meet with his advisor regardless. Educators did not approach individual students about their progress. The profession “guidance counselor” existed to fulfill this task and it would be considered inefficient to also have the teachers participating.

The hallways were more or less empty. Students generally did not start to feel restless until the later periods in the day. In order to allow for proper rest time, the school day was extended to be eight hours long. The fourth hour was designated for an hour long lunch during which the cafeteria operated. Kageyama consumed small snacks between classes instead of relying on one larger meal in the middle of the day. His family paid additional tuition to have these snacks provided for him. Drinks, however, were not included in the plan.

Vending machines were tucked away in a small alcove adjacent to the faculty office. The machine’s cooling systems hummed and reverberated with each other as Kageyama entered. There was a vast array of vending machines for Kageyama to choose from. One sold primarily teas, fruit flavored waters, and 500ml cans of Pepsi. Another was a coffee vendor, with the same brand offered in a variety of temperature, milk content, and caffeine. Caffeine had its uses even when falling asleep unintentionally was no longer possible. His target machine was the milk machine that provided a whopping 27 different options from chocolate to banana and from fat-free to heavy cream. His poison of choice was the simple single serving milk box of whole delicious-brand milk. With a flick on his wrist, he brushed the back of his left hand across the scanner nearby the coin slot. He pushed the button with the entire weight of his arm and his treat fell into the retrieval port with a thud. He checked his balance with a glance and reached down to retrieve his milk, thoughts spinning in his mind. 

He wondered what it would be like to convince a chip reading vending machine that’d he paid for two milk cartons instead of one. Credit manipulation was a dimension of illegal he could not comprehend. Could he be crazy enough to involve himself in the “evil” sector of programming and manipulation? Real dreams must be even wilder than credit fraud, Kageyama reasoned. He held his chin in thought and chewed on his lower lip. His brows ached from his ponderous contortion.

Real dreams, huh?

Kageyama carried his drink into the faculty office. He excused himself past a few desks occupied by other instructors and deposited himself in the free seat beside his guidance counselor. She had been assigned to him upon his acceptance to the school. She had side swept bangs with the rest of her long chestnut brown hair pulled sloppily into a clip. Her eyebrows were thin lines of pencil atop eyelids dusted with green eyeshadow. Hey eyes were a shade darker than her hair and crowded by the beginnings of crow’s feet. When she spoke, her demeanor had the tendency to fluctuate between a dreamy lilt to a clipped matter-of-fact at the drop of a hat. The transition was so sudden that Kageyama almost began to cry after his first encounter with her.

“Kageyama Tobio, I received a notice from your History professor that you on the verge of failing for this semester,” she explained, pointing at her monitor with the end of her purple ballpoint pen.

He did not react quickly enough to feign concerned surprise.

She hummed thoughtfully to herself and looked skyward. The end of the pen met the corner of her mouth. “It really is a fascinating part of history you would be discovering too. Oh the romantic exchange of poetry from behind dark veils. Clothes so cumbersome that people failed to escape a horrendous fire. Novels written in little hiragana symbols by bored noble women.”

Here she goes again, Kageyama thought.

The stars in her eyes went dark. She crossed her legs and pointed her pen at him accusingly. “And what, exactly, is your reason for this?”

He swallowed and struggled to form a coherent response. “Maybe. I um. Perhaps my studying is not enough?”

She let out a heavy sigh of relief, a faint flush appearing on her cheeks. She put her free hand on her chest. “Oh thank goodness, an easily manageable problem! Would you like me to assign a tutor? Virtual or live? Perhaps an supplementary stasis session? No problem, no problem at all. Just say the word.”

“What would you recommend?” he asked. Contrary to his lack of effort, Kageyama was not particularly fond of failing classes. It was a downer, being reminded of one of his shortcomings. He hoped the golf ball sized knot of stress appearing in his chest was not affecting his expression.

“You’ve mentioned some anxiety associated with tutors, especially from your own class,” she replied carefully, waiting for Kageyama to affirm, “That being said, maybe the latter would be sufficient.”

Kageyama nodded slowly, feeling down. He let his shoulders slouch and he fiddled with the plastic wrapping of the straw on his milk. He did not bother to try to correct her. While he did feel nervous, it was because many of his classmates, especially the most academically successful, treated him rather coldly.

“Onto the next order of business, I received word from your Computer Science instructor that you and your lab partner have not yet submitted any progress on your midterm assignment,” she commented off-handedly, peering at the screen with scrutiny. She clicked her tongue. “What’s with that, Kageyama? Very unlike you.”

He evaded her gaze. “We don’t really get along too well.”

“Listen, you need to worry about getting your own work done. If you two truly don’t get along and are incompatible partners, simply do the assignment yourself. You know you have the ability. Complacently continuing to disagree will not complete this assignment,” she stated firmly.

“Yes, ma’am,” he responded, voice small. He couldn’t tell if his palms were wet from his sweat or the condensation.

“Though, for next time, I have a potential solution,” she started. She waited for him to look up as permission to elaborate. “If you are currently in the midst of an independent study, your instructor has agreed to waive your participation in the group assignments.”

Maybe that would be better for him, he thought. He licked his dry lips. “I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you very much.”

“Enjoy the rest of your break. Work hard.” Her smile was too bright.

On his way back to the classroom, Kageyama turned the idea for an independent study over in his mind. He ripped off the straw’s wrapper and punched the straw through the tiny foil circle. He took a long sip, the box slightly caving inward. What could he possibly do as an independent study? He walked and blew bubbles into his milk on his way to the classroom. No one greeted him when he entered, the others already engrossed in their conversion, their games, their music, anything but Kageyama. He returned to his seat and eagerly tore into his chocolate flavored power up snack. 

He munched quietly, thinking about how he could peruse a great collection of online forums for inspiration. Maybe he could build a mathematics program for finding certain kinds of numbers, he was fond of looking those up. He crumpled up the wrapper and took in the last dregs of his milk. Tossed his trash into separate waste receptacles.

Other classmates were beginning to wind down, moving their desks back into place and putting away their various forms of entertainment. Kageyama mindlessly took up his tablet and unlocked the screen. The article about the Millennium Prize Winner was still open.

Dreams.

Oh.

Kageyama stared stunned until the screen went dark.


	13. Group Mentality

Midterms were due. The room was quiet with whispers as the instructor waited for his students to have their programs running. He was very persnickety about the output. Duos around the room audibly dismayed at their outputs not exactly lining up with what was expected. Kageyama’s partner was seated towards the rear row, giving them plenty of start up time before the instructor made his way around to them. The kid seemed to be in an off mood, today. Antsy, even. He was pinching and pulling on the skin of his knuckles. He stopped to gnaw off a hangnail, then resumed.

Kageyama opened PuTTY and connected to the school’s linux server. He uploaded the completed assignment onto the school server that morning. His output was perfect, after painstakingly moving each line of the output over by two spaces. He had been reluctant to heed his counselor’s advice, but he couldn’t afford to fail his only good class.

“Here we go,” the classmate said, “I’ll go fetch the teacher while it compiles.”

Getting it over and done with earlier was fine by him. Kageyama offered what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “Sure, no problem.”

He navigated the directory until he came across their shared package for the midterm. He typed a command to compile the program.

“Delete this token?” he breathed. His smile melted along with his confidence. Kageyama was flabbergasted. He had run this program from home less than four hours ago. He viewed the program and scrolled to the problem line. He was surprised to find a wayward curly bracket within a set of parentheses. He switched to the terrible in-console editor and expunged the rascal. There should be no more errors.

“Variable not read?” he read to himself. Questions swam in his mind. He heard footsteps approaching from behind the monitor. It wasn’t fair. There wasn’t enough time for him to open Comet and make changes. His eyes raced down the code, spotting idiotic error after error.

Then, a simple accessor method had a green block of comments in all caps.

//IS THIS FAST ENOUGH FOR YOU, KING O  
//F THE KEYBOARD?

Kageyama sat transfixed for a moment. Then, he took his hands off the keyboard and buried his face. Dread swelled inside of him. Another hand settled on his shoulder.

“Ready to go, Mr. Kageyama?” the teacher asked, unassuming.

Kageyama curled his fingers down to see, palms still resting against his jaw. Horrible pangs of despair raked through him. He saw his partner watching him carefully, expression unreadable. He crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow when Kageyama met his eyes.

Somehow, Kageyama felt like this was his first dream. He was going to wake up any second with his undamaged project ready to go. He looked from the computer screen, to his hands, to his teacher, and back again. There were no answers or excuses anywhere. A gaping maw had appeared where his stomach had been, all of his organs were sucked into the abyss. The blood was pulled from the tips of his fingers and from his pulsing neck. He felt empty and pale.

“It won’t compile,” he admitted. Was there a way to salvage any pride?

The teacher considered this for a moment. “Is that so?”

Kageyama nodded. His teacher’s lackadaisical shrug stung more than the reproach he had expected. He looked around the room and found most students watching him. Their eyes were shadowed and they were grinning amongst themselves. Then, the whispers started. Generally, the voices were low during checks to begin with, but then Kageyama heard it.

“King of the Keyboard.”

“Dethroned at last.”

“Long live the King.”

He stood up and balled his fists. Unadulterated hatred radiated off of him. The voices dropped to murmurs when met with Kageyama’s face. He could barely feel the crescent moon cuts forming on his palms. Just when Kageyama’s heart was about to break, he heard a louder voice.

“Eh? What’s this king business?”

Kageyama whipped his head around.

Hinata had his mouth covered by two other students with beads of sweat appearing at their temples. He fought to free himself. The students holding him back were trembling at the knees.

Something changed. Their whispers and breathy chortles echoed in his mind like breaking glass. He sat at his desk and hid his face in the crook of his elbow. The sound of his haggard breathing as he willed himself not to cry did not hide the deriding of his hateful classmates.


	14. Toss Your 5-Yen Coin

Kageyama did not bother with fixing and troubleshooting the program all over again.

Kageyama shook, mouse icon drunkenly prompting a new Comet project. His mouth was dry and his lips were gummed together as he forced them to part for a deep breath.

And DreamTime was born.


	15. Clap Your Hands Red

Kageyama Tobio had never figured that his each waking hour would be spent finding a way to allow him to sleep. He had researched copyright protection thoroughly with the help of his guidance counselor and discovered how to dismiss Kiyoko.

The first obstacle was accessing and understand how the EfficiencyChip prevented sleep. Accessing was the easy part. All technology forcibly employed by citizens had to be published in public venues. In less than a day, he had a copy downloaded from a virtual library. Unfortunately for him, while assembly was a very low-level language . . . the file was immense. He felt that the printed form would easily fill his bedroom and drown him. He was daunted, to say the least.

After an earnest two weeks effort, Kageyama had taken in less than a percent of what was before him. He decided that he needed this in another format or it would be greatly improbable to complete his analysis. It made him question the intentions of the system that decided to choose this file to display to the citizenry. He did not dwell on that thought for long. He needed to find a more human-user friendly version.

Another useless week passed. His only success was a passing grade on his most recent History quiz. He kept chipping away at his first read through of the efficiency code, but it was on the back burner. Browsing through forums and reading strangers comments as a last resort, one italicized statement caught his attention.

The anonymous poster claimed to be a university student at Tokyo University. The poster currently suffered to understand the same public file as Kageyama. The difference came from an index being added to differentiate the different segments by their function. A godsent. He posted the file with the index added. Kageyama had never wholeheartedly trusted an unfamiliar link in his short life.

Unthinkably, Kageyama began to make progress. He was able to isolate what he needed to learn. He learned that the EfficiencyChip was in many ways a health monitor and subtle manipulator. It recorded and synced with the vitals. It leeched power from the body’s movement. He figured out that the chip monitored the hormone secretions of its host. The chip overwrote the body’s desire to release the complex group of hormones with a body spasm and the input of a counter-acting hormone in its place. 

Rest was only available through stasis. This process was more akin to subscribing to an all-night running theatre within a medically induced coma. There were no REM cycles during stasis, where Kageyama learned dreams occurred. 

It was beautifully simple. A switch, if the body has queued this hormone, then jolt. Else, carry on business as usual.

Kageyama had a plan.

Using almost an identical schematic as the EfficiencyChip, he designed a health monitor that would mimic the user exactly and broadcast this silhouette of a human to the embedded chip. There would only be one difference: the statement for the body queueing the complex sleep hormone would always be false. That was the basic outline. He still needed to look into the emergency preparations of the EfficiencyChip. He planned to compare those statistics to those of an average person sleeping so that he did not accidentally trip an alarm. It would be months until he had a working prototype.

The school granted him with funds and materials for his pet project. He lied to his counselor and his teachers about his progress. They believed him, consoling and encouraging him to continue to try his best. He logged sufficient hours on record to account for his time. The details were simply not included. He cycled through taking extra stasis lessons and his grades steadily improved. His instructors were overjoyed. 

In their eyes, he could do no wrong. Kageyama was juggling a five hours a day independent study and was improving his grades. He was excused from group projects. Isolation never tasted so sweet.


	16. Bow

Kageyama finished his prototype in April, his first month as a second year.

Using a flathead screwdriver the size of his pinky, Kageyama secured his flake of circuitry into place. He popped a button cell battery into its slot and screwed the specially designed watch face closed. Anticipation mounted and a shiver of exhilaration raced down Kageyama’s spine. He clumsily strapped the DreamTime on, the excess velcro hanging loosely from his hand. Part of him knew of the dangers, especially of performing his experiment alone.

Kageyama’s face ached from smiling and, in the vast ocean of his heart, the waters began to boil. He flipped on the tiny switch on the handless watch face. Inexplicably, he had expected a little electrical shock to course up his arm or for the back of the device to warm his skin. His fingertips tingled. He wrote it off as just nerves. He was not shocked to find himself more awake than ever before.

Kageyama looked around his room and found nothing of particular interest to keep him occupied. He was still dressed from school. He wandered out to his kitchen and slumped into one of the stools at the island counter. He blew air up at his forehead and disturbed his bangs.

“Kiyoko, area interests,” he called.

A projection from the screen embedded in the counter listed off the collection of local gatherings and events.

“Wait,” he asked, stopping the scrolling list on the Karasuno Complex annual hackathon at the old library. 

Running from noon to midnight, teams of six left early from school and competed in a streak to create usable software. This year’s focus was their grade’s target language for the semester. All the students were encouraged to compete. He held a nail between his teeth, softening it with a glaze of saliva from insistence swipes of his tongue, then tore the nail away a snap. Kageyama weighed his options.


	17. Feeling Lost in Your Hometown

The room was hot. Fans whirled and combatants dabbed at their foreheads with officially sponsored by Android hand towels. The air buzzed with indiscernible whispers between teammates, though some groups appeared to only communicate via message.

There did not appear to be any other spectators - just proctors and teachers. He saw his teacher from the previous year overseeing a flustered team of students from their school. He felt an ambivalence between waving and hiding his face. He did neither.

Kageyama recognized the members of the Karasuno Computer Science Club easily enough. There was the stalwart captain Sawamura Daichi and the vice captain Sugawara Koushi. They were standing, dripping sweat and sharing drink from a thermos. Honorable mentions included the familiar duo of Azumane Asahi and Nishinoya Yuu. Azumane was at a laptop, face contorted with anxiety, Nishinoya looked on from over his shoulder, occasionally pointing at the screen and whispering. Tsukishima Kei, one of his classmates from last year was swiping his finger across the screen of a tablet, heading bobbing to some beat, seeming unperturbed by the heat.

A squeak escaped from behind the team meter-sized monitor and drew eyes from the entire room. Hinata stood from behind the station, tomato red, laughing nervously. Sugawara turned Sawamura away, put on his most brilliant smile, and sauntered over to Hinata’s side. He clapped his teammate on the shoulder. The two descended back out of sight behind the station.

Kageyama slumped against the wall from a distance so he could creep on the team. A sick part of him conjured up a quixotic reverie that Karasuno’s team would notice him standing there and invite him to participate. He checked the DreamTime like a watch. He understood why there were almost no spectators. There were no revealed details about the project.

Hinata jumped up with a fired up cry, arms straight up in the air. Positive energy sloughed off of him and invigorated his teammates. Sawamura barked at him to get back to work. Everyone was smiling and stretching their necks. The teacher chastised them for being rude to the other participants.

Something black crept into the corner of Kageyama’s mind. The jeers and whispers of last year’s classmates seeped back into his consciousness for the first time in months. He bit the inside of his cheek.

Hinata and Sugawara high-fived. Sawamura gently corrected a mistake of Asahi’s.

Kageyama burned with remembrance.

 

During his third year of middle school, his first ever paired programming project was with the girl he sat next to in class. Her name was Fujita Mio. She wore her hair in tiny pigtails. Her skin was naturally tan enough to give the allure of hosiery. 

“I’m not that good at this stuff,” she admitted when they started the project.

Kageyama could remember his distinct annoyance at having received such an unbeneficial partner. The whole experience was an unmitigated disaster. Fujita made a flurry of mistakes even though she claimed she was trying the best that she could. At the end of his rope, Kageyama point out yet another endless loop.

“Are you screwing around?” he snapped, causing a scene, “This will never finish.”

Fujita recoiled, face flushed, hands startled off the keyboard. Kageyama quickly took it over and rewrote the line in a flurry.

“There. It should work now,” he had announced, a triumphant grin on his face.

Fujita bit her lip and her eyes watered. Her shoulders shook. She made to slap Kageyama’s hands away from hey keyboard. He had already pointed out the next method on the assignment sheet.

“Okay, let’s do that next one,” he said, ignoring Fujita’s expression.

The saddest part, he realized, was how this was not an isolated occurrence. Time after time, Kageyama overpowered his partner and indicated their incompetence with curt words. Eventually, his classmates grew anxious as the partners were announced. There were cries of joy and relief from students who didn’t receive Kageyama as their partner. It was confusing, in a way. Kageyama was always happier when he received a high scoring partner in his weaker classes in middle school. 

 

Kageyama pushed himself off the wall and walked home, uncomfortably reliving Hinata’s smile on repeat his entire walk home. He keyed himself inside, feet dragging in his slippers to his room. There were swirls of color in his vision and waves of anxiety in his chest. He wanted the warmth of others to help keep him going. He shut the lights and changed into loungewear. He sat down on his bed and felt heavy. His eyes itched. He fiddled with the loose end of the velcro strap of the DreamTime and laid his head down on the end opposite the stasis sensors.

Hopeful scenes of groups of supportive, happy friends painted themselves on the speckled ceiling. He closed his eyes with fervent need to see the sight again in his dreams.

 

Kageyama woke in a cold sweat. He gasped for air and ran his tongue along each of his teeth. The image of his teeth piled in his hand and the odd fictional sensation of his gums smacking against each other was so horrifically realistic. He turned off the DreamTime, ripped off the velcro, and tossed it under his bed. He righted himself on his bed and submitted himself again to the nightly torturing of Kiyoko’s voice.


	18. Meeting in the Crosswalk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because we all know that Kageyama wouldn't give up after one teeth falling out dream.

Present Day, Early Morning

Kageyama realized half a minute too late that he had missed the cut off to participate in the assessments for the night. He looked down at his newly outfitted leather strap on the DreamTime with a frown. While he certainly could sleep the remainder of the wee hours of the morning away, there was little guarantee that he would rise with adequate time to get to the classroom. His eyes hurt from the strain of squinting and convinced him to rest. He stretched across his bed and stared up at his poster.

"Do I dare?" he whispered to himself. He counted his heartbeats as the LED flickered on the DreamTime until sleepiness snatched him away.

 

The banging open of his parents' bedroom door jarred Kageyama awake. He sat up on his bed and rubbed his eyes. He dressed with urgency, gathered his school things, and skipped breakfast. The walk to school was a familiar daze that passed Kageyama by blurrily. The time did not occur to him until he passed through the entrance of the school and light flooded the hall. Startled and momentarily blinded, he pieced together that it was not yet an appropriate time to arrive. He was here, so he would make do. 

The classroom had never been so eerily quiet. His breaths rolled off the surface of his desk like howling gusts. There was no motivation for him to do anything aside from lower his head down away from the light and nap. After ten fitful minutes, the lights dimmed to their passive, emergency only, setting from the lack of motion. He thought he felt the overwrite of the DreamTime on his system like static raising the hairs on the back of his neck as he fell asleep.

 

The room was square with white walls. The ceiling stretched up ten meters high. The room was lit by stripes of bright, white lights. There was one long table exactly in the center of the room, nonsensically bisecting it. At this table, there were six black tower computers with flashing green LEDs inside. Sleek silver monitors were all opened to Comet. Cursors flashed black and scurried like electrons, unable to be pinned down to one location for even an instant. In front of the computers, there were six identical chairs at varied heights. The air had the faint smell of barley tea.

There was a banner stretched across the wall behind the computers. The fabric was a dense black with no sheen. White words stretched across it. They could not decide what they wanted to say. ‘Karasuno, fight!’ one moment, ‘Do your best!’ another, ‘Let’s go for Nationals!’, the next. They stretched and receded and switched order constantly. Only a gut instinct from the slightest of glimpses gave any insight.

The room had no door or windows.

People appeared in the room as though they had always been there. Turned and talked in their individual chairs. Stood in the corner futzing with the air conditioning. Stretched their arms across their chests. Different hair everywhere. 

Kageyama heard some voices and was only able to focus on one at a time. The others would fade muffled to the background. He was fixated on a voice he decided belonged to Sugawara Koushi.

“Don’t mind, don’t mind,” Sugawara said. 

Kageyama thought his voice suited the occupation of guidance counselor. His smile too. Kageyama could not figure out who he was speaking to. Sugawara had gray hair that lacked the dryness and thinness resulting from age. He ran his fingers luxuriously through his hair and took a deep breath in his chair.

The next voice undoubtedly belonged to Hinata. He heard it from directly in front of his face, but saw Hinata sitting in a chair off to his right. He was hard to understand.

“Kageyama,” he sing songed, beckoning him over.

Warm fuzzies unfurled in his chest as he wavered, approaching on shaky legs. He collapsed into the thankfully vacant seat beside Hinata. He tried to type at the keyboard and gibberish filled the screen. He felt the desk beneath his hands being to rumble.

Hinata grabbed Kageyama by the shoulders and shook him.

“Kageyama Tobio!” he yelled.


	19. See You Tomorrow Isn’t Goodbye

Hinata’s eyes fluttered open as the lights automatically came to life at six thirty in the morning. He felt disoriented. The crease between the wall and the ceiling above him was on the wrong side of the bed. The color of the moulding wasn’t quite right either. He sat up and grabbed his shirt over his heart. He took deep breaths until he felt a presence beside him. Hinata saw the DreamTime on his hand he remembered.

He remembered everything.

Kageyama looked exhausted. His was bloodshot eyed, greasy haired, and jittery. He managed a weary smile that crinkled his eyes. Kageyama raised a hand up towards Hinata.

“You made it.” He looked expectant.

Hinata laughed and slapped Kageyama’s hand.

“You really are a genius,” Hinata praised.

“It’s really not that big of a deal,” Kageyama resisted, averting his eyes and plucking at the hem of his shirt.

Hinata took up that fiddling hand in both of his, bringing Kageyama’s attention to his eyes. Excitement rippled from his heart and he hoped that Kageyama could feel it.

“I mean it,” Hinata pressed, “You better show your face at Computer Science Club today or else I’ll knock your door down and drag you there.”

“I look forward to it,” Kageyama promised. He turned Hinata’s grasp into a firm handshake.

The words hung heavily between them and they shared unbridled smiles as their fingers parted.

For this was only the beginning.


End file.
